ELEKTRA RECORDS is an American record label owned by Warner Music
Group , founded in 1950 by
Jac Holzman and Paul Rickolt. It played an
important role in the development of contemporary folk music and rock
music between the 1950s and 1970s. In 2004, it was consolidated into
WMG's
Atlantic Records Group . After five years of dormancy, the label
was revived as an imprint of Atlantic in 2009. The label has been run
since 2015 by Gregg Nadel, who officially became its president in
2017.

CONTENTS

* 1 History

* 1.1 Founding and early history
* 1.2 1970s (
Asylum Records merger)
* 1.3 1990s (Elektra Entertainment Group)
* 1.4 2004 to current (Revival Asylum's founder,
David Geffen ,
would head the newly combined label. Holzman, in the meantime, was
appointed senior vice president and chief technologist for Warner —
ushering the company into home video and the first interactive cable
system. Holzman also went on to acquire
Discovery Records . In 1975,
Geffen stepped down due to health problems. He would be replaced by
Joe Smith, who later went on to become CEO of
Capitol RecordsCapitol Records .

Joe Smith, whose leadership resulted in the biggest market share and
gross revenues Elektra Asylum was to have, inherited the A under his
leadership, the label would reach its commercial peak throughout the
rest of the 1980s and early to mid-1990s.

Like its sister labels, Elektra's fortunes began to wane in the
mid-1990s, in part because of a series of bitter corporate battles
between senior Warner label executives which seriously damaged the
collective reputation of the group. Unhappy with major structural
changes enacted by then
Warner Music Group chairman Robert Morgado,
Bob Krasnow abruptly resigned in July 1994, and others soon
followed—the highly respected Warner Bros CEO
Mo Ostin decided not
to renew his contract and left in December 1994, and Ostin's friend
and protégé
Lenny Waronker left early the next year. Krasnow was
replaced by
Sylvia Rhone and during the year the label was renamed
Elektra Entertainment Group.

In September 1994, another damaging controversy erupted when top
heavy metal band
MetallicaMetallica filed suit against Elektra to terminate
their contract and gain ownership of their master recordings. The
group based its claim on a section of the
California Labor Code that
allows employees to be released from a personal services contract
after seven years. By this time,
MetallicaMetallica had been with the label for
more than a decade and had racked up sales of over 40 million records,
but they were still operating under the terms of their original 1984
contract, which provided a relatively low 14% royalty rate. The group
also claimed that they were taking the action because Robert Morgado
had refused to honor a new deal they had worked out with Bob Krasnow
shortly before he quit the label. Elektra responded by counter-suing
the group, but in December New York magazine reported rumors that then
Warner Music US chairman Doug Morris had offered the group a lucrative
new deal in exchange for dropping the suit which was reported to be
even more generous than the earlier Krasnow deal. In January, the
group and Elektra jointly announced that they had settled the suit,
and although a non-disclosure agreement kept the terms secret, media
sources claimed that "a significant increase in royalty payments to
the band as well as a renegotiation of the group's recording contract
were key factors in
MetallicaMetallica and Elektra coming to terms."

Despite having a large stable of noted acts, as the 1990s drew to a
close, Elektra began to see a slump in revenue, while noticeably
underperforming on the charts. It also developed a bit of a sullen
reputation in the industry for not properly promoting many of its
releases, thus earning the nickname "Neglektra" by many of its acts,
and was easily lagging behind its sister labels Warner Bros. Records
and
Atlantic RecordsAtlantic Records .

The new owners of WMG decided to merge Elektra and Atlantic Records.
Because it was the lesser performing label of the two, 40% of
Elektra's operations were put into the new venture, while a commanding
60% of Atlantic's went in. Subsequently, the new company was called
"
Atlantic Records Group " with Elektra breaking off into a subsidiary
which became dormant until the label was revived in 2009 (though
longtime time Elektra artists such as
Tracy Chapman ,
BjörkBjörk , and
Yolanda Adams continued to have releases on the label while newer
signees such as
Jason MrazJason Mraz and Jet were transferred to Atlantic).

Atlantic Records Group announced the revival of
Elektra RecordsElektra Records as an
independent entity within Warner Music on June 1, 2009. The revived
label is headed up by two new co-Presidents:
Mike Caren , Exec. VP of
A&R for Atlantic Records, and John Janick, founder and President of
prominent indie label
Fueled by Ramen . The revived label uses a
modified version of the circa-1970s Elektra logo.

On October 4, 2012, Warner Music announced that
Jeff Castelaz , the
co-founder of
Los AngelesLos Angeles -based independent label Dangerbird Records
, had been named President of Elektra Records. Gregg Nadel from
Atlantic RecordsAtlantic Records A&R became General Manager of the label in 2015. In
September 2015 Castelaz stepped down from his role at Elektra, leaving
Nadel to run the label.

In 2016, Elektra’s releases included the debut album by Icelandic
Rock Band Kaleo , which included the #1 Modern Rock Hit “Way Down We
Go ”, Fitz ">

*
Jac Holzman and Gavan Daws (1998). Follow the Music: The Life and
High Times of
Elektra RecordsElektra Records in the Great Years of American Pop
Culture. First Media Books. ISBN 0-9661221-1-9 .
* Mick Houghton (2010). Becoming Elektra. Jawbone Press. ISBN
978-1-906002-29-9 .